View full sizeJim Tressel's departure from Ohio State rattled the Buckeyes program and its fan base. Now he's biding his time as his five-year suspension from collegiate coaching drags on.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Jim Tressel, when introduced at a banquet this month in Westlake, said, "I'm happy to be here. When you've been fired twice in one year, you're happy to be anywhere."

He now holds an administrative job at the University of Akron. A year ago, he resigned under fire after a decade as the most successful Ohio State coach since Woody Hayes. The second dismissal came when the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, in the wake of a 2-14 season, fired coach Jim Caldwell and his staff, including Tressel, who had worked for the final 10 games as an instant-replay adviser.

Tressel's fall at Ohio State shook most of the state as it had not been shaken since Woody Hayes threw a punch in the Gator Bowl in 1978. Fans in Cleveland reeled from Tressel's ouster more than most. In a city starved for victory, Tressel was the local guy -- born in Mentor, raised in Berea -- who won it all.

Before Tressel, Cleveland was divided in three parts among major-college loyalties. Ohio State claimed a majority of fans, with Notre Dame and Michigan trading spots as the second and third favorite, depending on their fortunes on the field.

After Tressel, Cleveland is the northernmost outpost of the Buckeye Empire. Everyone saw that in 2011 when Ohio State's men's basketball team played the second and third rounds of the NCAA Tournament at The Q, before adoring crowds in a scarlet madhouse.

Tressel built a fence around Ohio in recruiting. While the occasional Big Ten skill-position starter (Lee Evans, Ricky Stanzi, Brian Hoyer) got away, there was no recurrence of such defections as Villa Angela-St Joseph's Desmond Howard slipping off to Michigan to win a Heisman Trophy, while paired with his high school batterymate, Elvis Grbac.

Notre Dame's decline among fans here has been a function of its also-ran status on the field for a generation. Michigan's rise coincided with the Charlie Brown struggles of John Cooper, Tressel's predecessor, who so often whiffed when the big prize -- an undefeated season, a bowl victory, most of all a win over Michigan -- was within reach.

Tressel all but promised to reverse that trend the day he was hired out of Youngstown State in college football's minor leagues. Typically, though, he left himself an out. "I just promised [the fans] they would be proud of the players," Tressel said after a 26-20 victory at Ann Arbor in 2001 changed the way the sport's biggest rivalry would be viewed.

After that, Ohio State had the initiative. The Buckeyes won an unthinkable nine of 10 times. Tressel chased the respected Lloyd Carr into retirement and ensured the cashiering of his Michigan successor, Rich Rodriguez.

Every hair in place, tie knotted, plays scripted, Tressel seemed to be a sideline-pacing contradiction. He was a buttoned-down technocrat who so loved the Saturday battles that he counted off the days every year until the biggest one against Michigan.

His fall was not as easy to explain as that of the fiery Hayes. He was not an outsized celebrity coach who brought great expectations, like his successor, Urban Meyer. Tressel was a man of both opportunism and altruism who helped many more people than he hurt. He was also an icon of propriety who had a past of improprieties, for which he had escaped punishment.

The player tattoos whose concealment finally brought him down seem trivial in many ways. Said Terry Bowden, now Akron's coach, a member of college football royalty, along with his father, Bobby, and brother, Tommy: "A lot of coaches look at it a little differently. Did Jim Tressel cheat to recruit players? Did Ohio State pay players when he was the coach? No, he didn't. No, they didn't. He just didn't handle some things as well as we all wish we had done from time to time."

To fans, Tressel had a quality of nobility, even at the end. He was the coach who took the fall for his players, the selfless figure (albeit one leaving with a lavish settlement) who fell on his sword for Ohio State.

The coverup of the tattoos, though, branded Tressel as a liar. It is a mortal sin in the creed of the NCAA.

Tressel had been guilty of favoritism and negligence before. The first instance was with Ray Isaac at Youngstown State, where Tressel was also the athletic director and thus was well-schooled in the application of the rules. The two biggest instances were at Ohio State with Maurice Clarett, the star of his national championship team, and Terrelle Pryor, the most publicized player he ever recruited.

Knowingly playing ineligible players in the scandal involving Pryor was not a survivable offense. Tressel's penalty was to lose his dream job and to be unemployable for the next five seasons in college football.

Five years is over 1,800 days. It is a long countdown until Tressel, taking it one day at a time in Akron, can be on a college sideline, happy in conflict again.

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